What is Social Constructionism?

Social constructionism is an approach in the social sciences that emphasizes the role of culture and context in constructing meaning and understanding. It views knowledge as a socially constructed product and sees truth as dependent on consensus within a given community or society, not on any universal or absolute definition.

Social constructivism is a field of science relevant to many different disciplines and their respective fields of study, from psychology to media studies. By exploring how knowledge is socially constructed, social constructivism encourages us to analyze the power relationships embedded in our societies, and how language, culture, and context shape our understanding of the world we live in.

Personal construct psychology is a branch of social constructionism that focuses on an individual's construction of reality. It proposes that, by constructing and reconstructing our personal constructs in order to cope with the world around us, we are all theorists in our own right. This theory further suggests that, when exploring these power relationships embedded in societies, we should be looking beyond language and context to consider the personal meanings each individual assigns to shared situations.

From this perspective, all aspects of human experience — from race and gender to religion and sexuality — can be analyzed under the assumption that they are products of social processes rather than objective facts inherent in the natural world.

Social constructionism holds that reality is not predetermined by objective factors such as biology or physical environment but instead develops through ongoing interactions between people. These interactions include language, storytelling, shared understanding of symbols and representations and a range of other communicative practices which shape how we perceive our world.

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Social constructionism beliefs

In Sociology, the theory of knowledge that analyzes how persons develop their understanding and knowledge of the world is referred to as Social Constructionism.

The social constructionism theory contends that all meaning is created socially. Social constructs could be so firmly fixed that they seem natural, but they are not. Social constructs do not exactly reflect independent reality and they are created by a specific part of society.

Social constructionism has no precise definition. Nonetheless, social constructionists share the following practices and beliefs about social constructionism:

• According to the social constructionism theory, knowledge is socially developed. According to social constructionists, knowledge is originated out of human relational processes and what people perceive to be objective reality and true is the outcome of social processes occurred in cultural and historical contexts which means one may achieve truth within the limits of a given cultural, historical or social context but no over-arching truth is more valid than the other.
• In social constructionists view, things that are mostly perceived as natural in society, including knowledge of race, class, disability or gender, are constructed socially. Therefore, these are not real reflection of facts. There are some language conventions to every language. These language conventions decide how people perceive the world. Consequently, language is not unbiased. It pays more attention to few things while ignoring others. Hence, it is not possible to ignore the role of language in what individuals express, perceive or know.
• Social constructs are largely developed within specific cultures and groups. Social constructs dependence on economic, political and historical conditions may lead them to thrive and change.
• Common knowledge created in a social group has political, cultural and social outcomes. People in a social group take and uphold the community’s knowledge about specific realities. When new members are introduced, they accept such knowledge to extend the knowledge even further. Such socially constructed concepts give rise to social reality, and—if these concepts are not analyzed—they become firm and permanent. This may result in the creation of rivalry relationships between different communities that possess different perception of social reality.

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History of social constructionism

Thomas Luckmann and Peter L. Berger were the first to introduce the social constructionism theory in their book The Social Construction of Reality in 1966. Peter L. Berger and Luckman’s theory was very much under the influence of thinkers like the 19th-century American philosopher George Herbert Mead and Karl Marx. Especially the symbolic interactionism theory by Mead was predominantly influential.

Three distinct intellectual movements laid the social constructionism foundation during the late 19^th century. The ideological movement was the first to question the reality of social construction and to pay attention to the political agenda behind such reality. Next is the literary drive to deconstruct the impact of language on people’s knowledge of reality.

A scientific practice critique directed by Thomas Kuhn is the third to state that scientific outcomes are not the objective reality. In fact, these represent, and are under the influence of particular communities who create them.

Examples of Social Constructs

Personality

Evolutionary psychology sees personality with respect to behavior. Some psychologists have quantified personality in factors. For example, a person can be extrovert or obsessive introvert.

According to the essential view of personality – an objective, fundamental set of truths specify personality. For instance, someone who is “shy” by nature would avoid social gatherings and this nature is linked to several factors, such as a person’s environment or biology.

But, social constructionists believe that the personality of a person is constructed. Social constructionists believe that personality is a human behavior which may justify a person’s actions and beliefs that have no other explanation.

Language

In historical periods role of language was thought to be limited to express a person’s internal state. But, social constructionists contend that language, roots a person’s constructions of himself. Social constructionists see language a way to facilitate human interaction rather than representing any concepts.

Knowledge and Power

According to Social constructionists knowledge originates from human relational processes and what people consider to be objective is the outcome of social processes that occur in historical, cultural and social contexts. Also, power is constructed socially. Therefore, no natural law requires power to be deployed and distributed as people find it today.

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Social Theory of Constructionism compared to other theories

Social theory of constructionism is frequently compared with the theory of biological determinism, which implies that a person's behaviour and traits are defined solely by biological factors. Whereas social constructionism highlights the impact of environmental factors on people’s behavior and contends that relational processes between individuals develop reality.

Also, social constructivism must be considered as a different field from social constructionism. The idea of social constructivism is traced back to the era of psychologist Jean Piaget stating that human interaction with the environment develops the cognitive structures allowing him to understand the world.

In the twentieth-century Social constructionism originated when the legacy of the Postmodernism movement was predominant.

The legacy of postmodernism is the refusal of an ultimate truth. According to the postmodernists this world, as people perceive it, is an outcome of concealed structures. Postmodernism focuses on different ways of everyday life between groups of people. Social construction has both informed, and has been informed by Postmodernism; however, both these theories differ from each other.

The legacy of postmodernism differs from social constructionism because social constructionism offers a framework that helps to understand the constructed world in which people live — whereas, postmodernism lacks that framework.

Social constructionism has influenced many areas of studies, especially the evolving arenas of science and medicine as well as emergent sociology of science.

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Criticisms of the social construction theory

According to some critiques, social construction theory is anti-realist for contending that knowledge is constructed socially, not due to observing reality.

The twentieth-century Philosopher Paul Boghossian criticized social construction theory. Another twentieth-century Philosopher, Jean Bricmont, criticized social construction theory in his book. Professor Alan Sokal criticized social construction theory for contradicting on the knowledge of the presence of societies.

Boghossian argued that the main problem with social construction theory is its disregard for common sense knowledge - that is, the beliefs and values derived from everyday experience. Bricmont concurred with this criticism, giving his opinion that while social constructions play an important role in people's lives, it should not replace physical facts as a basis for our understanding of reality. Sokal also touched on this idea, saying that society should take into account both scientific facts and social constructions when constructing knowledge.

Some experts such as Edward Slingerland criticized Social construction theory for having an excessively narrow focus on culture and society and ignoring the impact of natural biological tendencies.

One more criticism is that social construction theory mostly ignore natural science contributions or even misuses them.

Another criticism aimed at social construction theory is that it ignores or misrepresents empirical studies. A key emphasis of the social construction theory is that meanings and interpretations are fluid, while empirical study seeks to identify patterns and trends which are more concrete. Supporters of social constructionism argue that its perspectivist approach need not contradict empirical methodology, but some critics view this as an oversight. 

Many criticize social constructionist approach due to relativism. By emphasizing that no objective reality exists and that each social construction of the same process are equally legitimate, there is no clear way for scientific research to leave a meaningful impact on society.

Since social construction theory relates common sense knowledge negotiated by individuals, human institutions, significations and typifications, can be illustrated for future generations as part of an objective reality as they had no involvement in the original negotiation processes.

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